Clock Watching
by J9
Summary: Warrick watches the clock (Warrick-Sara)


**Title:** Clock Watching

**Author:** Jeanine (jeanine@iol.ie)

**Rating:** PG, Angst

**Pairing**:  Sara/Warrick

**Feedback:** Makes my day

**Disclaimer:** If it was in the show, it's not mine.

**Archive:** At my site Checkmate (http://helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) , Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.

**Summary:**  Warrick watches the clock

**Notes: **For the LiveJournal Writer's Choice "Time" challenge. 

 ***

The hallway is empty, save for him. Silent save for the steady ticking of the clock on the wall. The clock that he is staring at, the clock that he's been staring at for the past twenty three minutes. He counts the second hand as it jerks its way around, and he wishes that he could look away, but he can't, held prisoner by the passing of time. 

It is now twenty four minutes since he was sent here.  

Warrick's used to counting down time. He's found himself doing it more and more often in the thirty five months since he and Sara began dating, surprised at how quickly he found himself watching the clock at the end of the shift, just waiting until he could go home and be with her. 

Thirty one months ago, Nick teased him that the bloom would fall off that particular rose once they'd moved in together, but it hadn't happened that way. 

Twenty seven months ago, when they'd announced their engagement, people had wondered was it too fast, something that had amused them hugely. 

It amused them even more twenty five months ago, when people were still wondering that as they were cutting their wedding cake. They'd heard the questions, they'd even talked about it themselves, wondering had they given themselves enough time, were they rushing into things? 

But it had felt right. It had been right, and even now, he has no regrets. 

Especially now. 

He stopped counting time after their wedding, only started again seven months and six days ago, when Sara approached him with a shake in her hand and a smile in her eyes and told him that she was pregnant. She'd been nervous about how he'd take it, because it wasn't planned, though they weren't taking precautions either. They had talked loosely about having kids, had decided that they had all the time in the world for it, but that if it happened, it happened. 

Then it happened, and he'd never been happier. Sara had treated the pregnancy like a particularly interesting science experiment, eating properly, cutting down her hours at work, even attempting eight hours sleep a night. Usually she managed six, but it was the attempt that counted. They went to the doctor together, to the sonograms together, and they were counting down to the due date together. 

That date was still four weeks away. 

It is now twenty six minutes since he was sent here. 

It is now three hours and forty seven minutes since he was standing in the break room, laughing with Nick over some joke that he can't even remember now. Since he heard Greg's panicked voice saying his name, was moving before he even heard the words, "Sara… DNA lab…"

It took him less than two minutes at a flat run to reach her, to find her sitting in a chair, face too pale, eyes red-rimmed, hand too cold when it gripped onto his. "It's too early," she whispered as he raised their joined hands to his lips, her fingers tightening on his as an expression of pain crossed her face. 

It took ten minutes for the ambulance to arrive, another twelve to get her to Desert Palm, and it is now twenty nine minutes since he was sent out here. 

The ticking of the clock is merciless, but it can't block out the memory of Sara's terrified questions, what was happening, why them, when she'd done everything so perfectly, had wanted this baby so much? He hadn't been able to answer her, had just held her hand, told her that everything was going to be fine. 

Then alarms had begun to ring, and she'd grown even paler, and the nurses had hustled him out, and that was thirty one minutes ago, and still no-one has come out to give him answers. 

One minute after he thinks that, the door opens, and a tired-looking doctor comes out, says his name and time stops. 

"You have a daughter-" 

Warrick can't stop himself from interrupting. "And my wife?"

The doctor holds up a hand. "Is going to be fine… eventually." Warrick's breath escapes him in a whoosh, and he sits down heavily, rests his head in his hands. He's dimly aware of the doctor sitting down beside him, of his continuing speech. "I'm not going to lie to you Mr Brown… we nearly lost her… both of them. It's going to be a while before she's up and around…"

"But she's ok? And the baby?"

The doctor chuckles. "She's small… we'll be keeping a close eye on her. But it looks like she's a fighter."

For the first time in three hours and fifty four minutes, Warrick smiles. "Like her momma."

Five minutes later, Warrick stands, rubs his hands on his jeans and heads for the payphone in the lobby. He makes two calls, one to Grams, one to Grissom, to clue them in, then he heads upstairs, sees his little girl for the first time. She is tiny, could probably fit into the palm of her hand, but he can see Sara in her, and he can't stop smiling. 

He spends twenty three minutes there, then he goes to Sara, waits for her to wake. When she does, he shows her the photos he has taken, holds her as she cries, and he promises her, like he promised her some three hours ago that everything will be ok. 

Ten minutes later, she is asleep in his arms. 

Eleven minutes later, he is asleep in hers. 


End file.
